Saturday, December 16, 2006

More troops for Iraq.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Is Negroponte Next?

Walter Pincus in the WaPo reports: "Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte, who had been rumored to be going over to the State Department as deputy secretary, said last week that he plans to remain in his current position through the end of the Bush administration."

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Neoconservative Fourtune Cookies

Michael Brendan Dougherty takes the old concept of adding the words "in bed" to the saying in your fortune cookie to uncover a sad truth about neocon thinking. Keep this in mind while reading any of their wanderings about our future course in Iraq

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Cut and ....

The tactic resembles Churchill's approach to controlling Iraq -- British enclaves that can be used to project force on an as needed basis. We'll probably see an escalation in the use of air power (which has gotten virtually no attention from the press) as did the Brits way back when.

It will be interesting to see what the Baker Commission rolls out. The cynic in me sees this gold-plated group of Washington insiders as simply providing cover for Shrub. The big question for me is not will the Commission come up with an interesting solution (they won't) but will Frat Boy have the good sense to take a hint.

Prediction: the Repub campaign cry for 2008 will be that Iraq was lost because the Democrats handicapped Bush while the Iraqis failed to stand up.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Mitt & Marriage (gay or otherwise)

As Ken and Barbie -- oops Mitt and Kerry -- depart the Statehouse there is the buzz about Mitt's methodical quest for the presidency (always the takeover artist ). Part and parcel of his cultural learnings of Massachusetts to make benefit glorious quest for Republican Party Nomination is ranting about the perils of gay marriage.

Mitt's problem is he has to make himself attractive to the Repub winger base, not an easy thing to do when you're a Bishop in the Mormon Church. You may be good looking and sufficently blow-dried, a successful capitalist, savior of the winter Olympics but you're lacking in the born-again, praise Jesus department. Plus, there's that polygamy thing.

Not that Mitt's into polygamy -- quite the contrary. None other than NRO's The Corner pointed out that he's the front runner in the monogamy sweepstakes -- all the others are guilty of being what Bob Dornan calls "open adulterers." Of course, Mitt might face a serious monogamy challenge from Dornan (although he's Catholic) or, worse yet, Mike Huckabee who not only has that covenant marriage thing going but is a Southern Baptist minister to boot.

So bashing gay marriage becomes the thing to do to burnish your purity credentials. But yet another problem: Massachusetts allows gay marriage and it happened during Mitt's administration. How could that be?

It's obvious -- the South African Supreme Court just approved gay marriage and the Chief Justice of Massachusetts is from South Africa! Perfect -- every winger loves a conspiracy story and you can tie in the perils of immigration thing plus activist judges (near and afar). Sweet.

Patrick's Transition Forgets Towns

Duval Patrick's transition team is announced with some notable exceptions. Per usual, Western Massachusetts is barely visible (with just two representatives according to the Springfield Republican).

The Local Government work group is all mayors, with no selectmen, town managers or administrators. Now one can speculate as to why that happened but the net result is that there's no voice for towns, which make up over 80% of the local governments in Massachusetts (where the median size of a community is just north of 10,200). One can be certain the mayors will focus on what issues the cities have and not smaller municipalities. Wanna guess how the recommendations for resource allocation will be tilted?

They did find room for a blogger tho' -- not that there's anything wrong with that.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Burning Bush

So states todays Washington Post (dot com). Therein lies the now familiar tale told by Perle, Hass, Muravchik, Adelman and company that the basic idea (off Saddam, install puppet government, grab oil, scare Arabs, protect Israel) was sound but the dumbass Bush couldn't pull it off. If they had only known that he was an inept doofus, they would have come up with yet another way to off Saddam, etc.

This denies the precise reason why they and other Repubs nominated and got Commandante El Busho elected in the first place: he's an empty suit. He was the almost perfect blank canvas that they could use to paint their personal Utopian notions on. The son of privilege (not trailer trash like Clinton) who came off as a born again Joe Everyman.

Regan once was their best hope but in the long run he proved a disappointment, moving off script into improv and unfortunate compromise. Besides he was given to astrology induced actions or confusing life with movie plots, and that was before the shooting took a terrible toll and Alzheimers started to creep in. That gave him a genial, grandfatherly, goofiness that you could dismiss. Nope, they needed someone single minded, shallow, combative, who'd stay with the program.

So they ignored the bald facts of Junior's life, marked by subterfuge, failure, the fratboy jock. They went for the Mayberry Machiavelli because they knew he'd keep hands off while the real men (and Condi, female but into sports and fitness) took care of business. As long as it made him look good, he'd go along and be the cheerleader. The CEO who wouldn't be detail oriented but the "big picture" guy in the corner office. Of course, they would draw the picture.

So rather than recognize the completeness of their failure, the neoCONS now have their knives out for Bush and will go off seeking another champion. Meanwhile, they sit safe and secure in their think tanks and councils, well compensated for hatching plans that have resulted in the debacle known as Iraq, GWOT, the long war.

Why the Post, or anyone else, continues to listen to the bleating of these losers is beyond me. They've demonstrated that they are morally and intellectually bankrupt. Enough already.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

And for this we need software?

The NY Times reveals that some major universities are developing software that will conduct a sentiment analysis -- in other words gage the opinions of people around the world to the pronoucements of El Commandante Supremo Busho.

To quote "Researchers at institutions including Cornell, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Utah intend to test the system on hundreds of articles published in 2001 and 2002 on topics like President Bush's use of the term axis of evil, the handling of detainees at Guantinamo Bay, the debate over global warming and the coup attempt against President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela."

Call someone evil and expect that they're going to straighten up and get with the program? Call for the overthrow of their government and expect cooperation? Talk out of both sides of your mouth and expect that folks will see you as truthfull? Subsitute preaching and inflexible demands for negotiation and expect others will engage in dialog?

About Me

Born during the month of the Hunger Moon in the year of the Rat. Not aging well at all. I've been involved in state and local government for probably too long. When I'm not working for a living I make photographs, some of which can be seen at www.berniekubiak.com.
The opinions expressed here are mine, not that anyone would want to share them.